


Business End of a Latte

by PokeChan



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, M/M, Outo AU, Slice of Life, super heroes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-19 23:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4765154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PokeChan/pseuds/PokeChan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Outo is a bright, bustling city at the heart of the country of Edonis. It's also known as the Oni Capital of the country, due to being the stalking grounds to some of the fiercest and numerous populations of oni anyone's ever seen. Because of this, Oni Hunters are drawn to this city in order to test their mettle and make names for themselves. It's not uncommon for lives to but cut unfairly short in the shadowy alleys, but lately hope seems to shining along with the full moon.</p><p>Two mystery huntresses appear when the oni are at their strongest to aid those in need of help. Just who are they and what, exactly, are they playing at?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Business End of a Latte

**Author's Note:**

> The ever lovely fieldofclover lent me this idea a while ago and after some poking, prodding, and tucking I think I have myself a semi-coherent story to share with all of you. Updates will be slow, as I'm only writing this as the fancy takes me, but I hope it's fun for everyone. I had fun playing with it.

Rumors were never in short supply in Outo, and while hunters and those willing to try their luck could hit up an Informant for information, the best place to hear the newest gossip remained coffee shops and restaurants. No tabloid could possibly tell you more than the gentle buzz of excited conversation that permeated the warm atmosphere of the local eateries. 

One such place, well known and very popular, was Cafe Starlight. It’s main attractions, along side being the best rumor mill in town, were the cute pair of owners. A darling couple of young ladies, Sakura and Yuzuriha, ran the place, brewing up creative, caffeinated drinks for all manner of folks all day. Between the sweet treats and sweeter faces Cafe Starlight had become a hit almost overnight when it had first opened. 

“They appeared last night as well” came the not so quiet whisper from the table closest to the counter where Yuzuriha was finishing ringing up a frothy peppermint chocolate to go. Yuzuriha couldn’t stop herself from leaning a bit closer as her customer walked away. 

“I heard! Can you believe it? A pair of vigilantes, in a place like this?” the woman said. It was hard to tell if she was actually as scandalized as she sounded or if she was just one of those people who sounded mildly affronted by everything. 

“They saved the lives on a rookie pair of oni hunters that had gotten in over their heads,” the man continued. He seemed excited at least, Yuzuriha noted. “They’re heroes.”

“Eavesdropping again, Yuzuriha-chan?” came a sweet voice a little closer to her ear than might have been strictly necessary. 

“Sakura-chan! I’m gonna start strapping a bell to you if you keep sneaking around like that,” Yuzuriha whined. 

Sakura only giggled, batting long eyelashes at Yuzuriha probably not on purpose. “Pay more attention to the world around you and less on other people’s conversations and maybe you’ll hear me coming.”

As usual, when Sakura had a point and Yuzuriha didn’t want to admit it, she pouted. “Aw, who knew Sakura-chan could be so mean!” It earned her a laugh and a fond head shake. “Besides, that conversation was happening in the world around me.”

Her partner in crime let it go with little more than a friendly eye roll, already busy helping the tiny old lady who had just stepped up to the counter. Bad habits aside, Yuzuriha and Sakura had been friends for years before they’d opened up shop in Outo. They were well used to each other’s quirks and any badgering was done playfully. 

Besides, it was an unofficial part of their job as shop owners to listen in on their patrons’ conversations. After all, if they didn’t have any good information they’d lose a whole lot of pull with the oni hunters. 

How ever it was that the conversation between the man and woman ended, Yuzuriha didn’t get a chance to hear it. They were already on a completely different topic by the time she tuned back in. She huffed quietly to herself and grabbed a wash rag from the nearby bucket, making her way out onto the floor of the cafe to wipe clean the recently vacated tables. One of the downsides to all the sugary sweets they sold was the sticky mess their customers couldn’t help but leave behind. 

For the rest of the afternoon Yuzuriha didn’t catch any more conversations about the masked, mystery huntresses that had been appearing in the dead of night to rescue newly registered oni hunters that needed an extra hand.

Normally, something like hunter pairs working together in groups wasn’t wholly unheard of, especially when trying to tackle stronger or more numerous foes. What was getting everyone’s attention was that the pair of masked strangers had no proper identities. No one knew who they were or where they’d come from. Both of them, and even their battle ready dog, wore masks and barely spoke except to warning new hunters to be more careful. They were more likely to appear closer to the full moon, lending their strength to new hunters while the moon lent strength to the oni. 

A normal pair of oni hunters were seen nightly in order to make enough money to support themselves, which raised the question of what the two masked ladies did to pick up the extra. 

Over the weeks Yuzuriha had heard all kinds of guesses and rumors and wild accusations about the masked hunters. Some were funny, some were well thought out, and some were downright insulting. But none of them were correct.

There were two people in all of Outo that knew who the pair of huntresses were and Yuzuriha was one of them.

She and Sakura had taken to literally moonlighting as oni hunters several months ago after hearing one too many stories of fallen hunters who had accidently bitten off more than they could chew or who had unfortunately run into an oni they couldn’t handle. 

It had been surprisingly simple to pull off. They hadn’t even registered with City Hall. Inuki, Yuzuriha’s trusty dog, was able to scent out oni and between him and Sakura’s innate ability to tell where help was needed and supernaturally good luck they donned masks and did what they could.

The gun Yuzuriha used was a family heirloom from her great grandfather years and years ago. It was charmed and made of blessed steel, making it bad news for any oni that happened to be on the receiving end of one of her bullets. Sakura was known to have magic, her wards on Cafe Starlight to keep oni out were some of the best in Outo and she’d rented out her blessings to other shop owners before. What most people didn’t know was that her powers were much more than warding abilities. Self taught as she might be, Sakura was a formidable powerhouse with an affinity for elemental magics. 

When they stepped up and combined their strength with that of the hunters they were helping no oni stood a chance

“So, are we going out again tonight?” Yuzuriha asked, flipping the sign in the front window from OPEN to CLOSED and locking the front door.

Sakura nodded, pulling on a pair of cheery, cherry pink rubber gloves to do the day’s remaining dishes. “It’s only a day after the full moon, I think it’s for the best that we at least do a round, just in case.”

Yuzuriha frowned as she picked up the drying rag and took the dripping plate Sakura handed her. “You sound like there’s something specific on your mind.”

“Just a feeling,” Sakura said, but they both knew what a “feeling” for Sakura meant.

She had once tried to described it to Yuzuriha as best she could. She’d called it a lead weight and a tugging at her middle like a rope tied around her waist. In their time together Yuzuriha had found that going with one of Sakura’s feelings was usually the best course of action. 

“Well then, let’s get this place cleaned up,” Yuzuriha said, putting all the determination she could into her voice. “You know how useless we are after a night like this!”

Laughing, Sakura mimicked her and they set off to finished their evening clean up in record time.

\--

“I know you like challenging yourself, Ryuu-ou, but are you sure we should be having our first hunt so close to the full moon?” Syaoran said, casting around and eyeing every shadow warily. 

They’d been told about the oni. It had been a pretty simple run down of the basics, the lady at City Hall had given them a map and a chart, some booklets that Syaoran had read through and Ryuu-ou had ignored. They were both aware that the oni were stronger the closer to the full moon it was and had skipped out on hunting during that time, but Ryuu-ou was impatient and liked to challenge himself.

Syaoran wasn’t a person to back down from a challenge himself, but he felt like there was a difference between pushing yourself and suicide missions. Everyone knew that the oni in Outo were, for some reason, especially dangerous and he couldn’t shake the feeling that he and Ryuu-ou were very much outside of their comfort zone right now. He could only hope that they ran into small fry, if anything at all, tonight.

“You worry too much, man! We can take anything Outo throws at us!” 

Just as Ryuu-ou spoke his sword shuddered, a sure sign that oni were afoot. Both of them unsheathed their blades, stepping up so that they were back to back, eyes scanning the shadows and skies for their prey. 

For several moments everything was silent, even the air seemed to still. Nothing moved and the only sounds that Syaoran could here as his own heartbeat and Ryuu-ou’s carefully even breathing. Then suddenly, everything was in motion.

The shadows leapt at them, gruesome teeth bared and inhuman eyes intent on the pair of hunters. Syaoran and Ryuu-ou were separated all too easily, worried about keeping themselves alive their practiced battle routine was quickly ruined and it was all they could do not to fall prey to the gnashing teeth of far too many oni.

“Syaoran!” he could hear Ryuu-ou calling between the oni’s snarls and the sound of their swords clanging against claws. 

Syaoran didn’t have the chance to answer Ryuu-ou’s call. Another oni took him from behind, knocking his sword from his hand and him to the ground. Syaoran could heard a wordless cry from where Ryuu-ou was and his blood ran cold. This was it, all those years the two of them had spent training and dreaming together had been useless. They were to be killed in the streets on Outo, only days after arriving, a measly nineteen years under their belts.

He waited for that final bite of claws to finally end him, but it never came. Instead, a blinding light burned through the air and the oni around him screeched out in pain. Syaoran lifted his head just enough to see a pair of cute, pink boots touch down on the cobblestone street in front of him.

Wearing the boots was a woman. She wore a cloak, the hood pulled up over her head and a mask on, covering the top half of her face save for a pair of brilliantly green eyes, and a scarf covered the bottom half of her face. In her hand was a thin staff, an orb of some sort was illuminated on one end of it as she pointed it at another oni that reared up at them with a hiss.

“Fire! Grant me purifying light!” Again, a blinding light shot through the air and again, Syaoran heard the oni screech. 

The cloaked woman dashed past him, spinning her staff easily before lashing out with it like a sword and cutting a pair of what Syaoran recognized as Ni-level oni to ribbons. Several more oni burst free from the shadows as Syaoran noticed a second person protecting Ryuu-ou. 

After that, everything was over disturbingly quickly.

“You guys are new hunters, right?” asked the woman who had helped Ryuu-ou after all of the oni had been defeated. This woman wore a jacket with a generous hood rather than a cloak like her partner, and large, tinted goggles. She put her gloved hands on her hips and tapped her foot and for a moment Syaoran felt like he was in trouble with his mother. “What are you doing out so close to the full moon by yourselves? Didn’t City Hall warn you?”

“We thought we could handle it,” Ryuu-ou said and Syaoran was glad to hear the regret in his voice, but he knew Ryuu-ou too well to think this meant he’d be more inclined to listen to Syaoran’s warning next time. 

“The week after the full moon is especially dangerous,” the cloaked woman said. Her voice was softer than the other woman’s, but no less firm. “The strong oni don’t lose their power as quickly as the lower level ones do. You should stick with a more experienced pair of hunters for a while.”

“Who? You guys?” Ryuu-ou said, sulking.

The women laughed and the cloaked one shook her head. “No, but there are plenty of veteran hunters who would be happy to show you the ropes, ask around.”

Syaoran had been able to ask the women more, like who they were or why they were hiding their identities, when a howl sounded from one of the roofs. “What?”

“And that’s our cue to go!” chirped the goggled woman. “You boys take care of yourselves!”

Without waiting another second the cloaked woman raised her staff and summoned a gust of wind. By the time everything settled neither of them were anywhere to be seen. No goodbye, no calling card, no explanation. They were simply gone.

“Well,” Ryuu-ou said, turning to look at Syaoran. “That was one of the weirdest things to ever happen to me.”

“Yeah, me too,” Syaoran agreed, picking up his sword and sheathing it. “I wonder-”

“Who’s there?” called someone from the corner of the backstreet they were on.

Another voice sounded, laughing merrily. “Looks like a pair of puppies who got in over their heads.”

There, under the streetlamp, stood a pair of men, one with wild, dark hair and the other with blond, mess locks, both were tall and making their way towards Syaoran and Ryuu-ou, who exchanged matching looks of exasperation. They hadn’t expected Outo to be like this.


End file.
